Katy Wheeler

Football mad dad Gary Spottiswood, of Westoe, South Shields, may have missed the spot on his crossbar challenge - but the video of his attempt has still gone viral.

Gary Spottiswood with sons Eli and Archie

Pint-sized Black Cats fan Archie, two, stepped in goal for his dad’s football feat, but ended up saving the ball with his head.

Now a video of the youngster’s diving header, in which he wasn’t harmed at all, has racked up 300,000 views online.

The Sport Bible page, which has 10 million likes on Facebook, shared the video with the sub header ‘Here’s the best save you’ll ever see,’ leading to it racking up hundreds of thousands of views in a matter of days.

Gary was on holiday with Archie, as well as wife Jess, 26 and youngest son Eli, six months, when he made the clip.

Archie's diving header

The 29-year-old said: “We were on holiday in Cumbria and I was having a kick-a-bout with Archie. I was filming it as I was trying to do the crossbar challenge to send to the lads.

“It ended up hitting him on the head, and he fell to the ground, but wasn’t hurt at all, the ball was just a penny floater. He jumped straight back up and started saying ‘again, again.’

“I sent it to Lad Bible and they ended up sharing it on their Sport Bible page. I didn’t realise it had gone viral until my mate messaged me after seeing it, it had had 49,000 views before I even clicked on it.”

Gary, who works at Sage as a telesales manager, added: “Because it was being seen by such a huge audience I thought there might be some negative comments, but everyone just thinks it’s really funny, including Archie who loves watching it back.”